


won't let it take you from me

by navaan



Category: Marvel Noir
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Dark, Established Relationship, M/M, Not Happy, Suicidal Thoughts, Zemo formula
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-27 10:15:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13246086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navaan/pseuds/navaan
Summary: Tony is injected with the Zemo formula and things don't look good, but Steve doesn't want to give up on him.





	won't let it take you from me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cap Iron Man Community](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Cap+Iron+Man+Community).



**NOW**

“Are you sure?” Steve asks quietly. He's trying not to lose hope, but things are getting more and more complicated. Erskine – his arm is in a sling because he's still recovering from a gun shot wound, and a terrible bruise marring his brow – smiles at him with all the compassion of a doctor delivering the bad news about a loved one. He doesn't know that's what he's doing, Steve thinks, although he knows that Tony means a lot to Steve. Or then perhaps he does know.

“I would very much like to give you better news, my friend,” he said, and his eyes say more than that: _I'm truly sorry. I want it to be different, too._

“Thank you,” Steve says with all the calm he usually reserves for the battle field. He sees the papers pinned to the board to the left of the room, he sees the papers and notes thrown all around the table. He knows the doctor has been doing his best to find a cure. Nobody can ask more.

“Short of a miracle...” Erskine starts and then breaks off, because maybe he doesn't want to believe it either, because maybe he doesn't want to make it real by putting I into words.

Steve feels his own unshakable bravery waver, but catches himself. “He's done it before,” he reminds the doctor and forces himself to smile, even though it feels like his face is breaking with the effort.

He has to believe it.

Miracles is what Tony deals in.

And what is Captain America if not a man made miracle himself?

“Let me know,” he says before leaving, “if you come up with anything else.” 

Erskine nods, although they both know that they're grasping for straws now.

But giving up is not in Steve's nature.

It's not in Tony's nature either.

He'll hold on to that and find a way. Because that's what they do: the impossible.

* * *

**THEN**

He grabs Tony under the arm and then drags him along. The guards are still unconscious, but Tony is terribly pale and only staggering forward. Steve has the terrible sinking feeling that he knows exactly what has happened. Tony's tight lipped and in shock and it's not because of the kind of physical torture that usually awaits their agents in this war.

Steve has the urge to stop, check Tony for wounds, make sure he's alright. But they can't linger here. It can't be long until someone will know that Tony has escaped and then everyone will be after them.

“Cap,” Tony groans. “Where is the armor?”

“Don't worry,” he says softly. “The armor's secure.”

“Good,” Tony mumbles and stumbles forward. Then unexpectedly he adds very quietly: “Don't let me have it.”

Steve nearly freezes. It's like his most terrible nightmares have just come true in just these few words. “Tony,” he whispers and forces himself not to stop, not to pause, not to falter. 

“I'm sorry, Cap,” Tony whispers back and leans heavily on him. "It's be a few hours... Just don't trust me, alright?"

They've only known each other for a year, but so much has happened between them in that short time. War has made every personal, every vibrant moment count double. All they've already gone through together, all the short stolen moments of love they'd had to guard and cherish have brought them here, have made them what they are. Their ties are stronger than chains now.

Steve couldn't let go if he wanted to and he doesn't; he drags Tony along, because escape is all that matters now.

“Zemo,” Tony says and his voice is wavering. “Cap, you can't let them get me.”

“We'll figure it out,” he replies and pulls them forward. They will. They always do.

* * *

**NOW**

“Jarvis,” he says when he arrives at 890 Fifth Avenue and the man lets him in.

“Rogers,” he greets and nods at him. His face is gaunt and gray and Steve realizes Tony's old friend has aged fast over the last few months. It's the second time that Edwin Jarvis is standing by as the Zemo serum takes one of his closest friends away piece by piece – this time someone as close as a son – like a creeping fiend you can neither see nor fight as it steals a man's mind. “He's been asking for you, Rogers. Go right up.”

Steve nods and watches the old soldier vanish back into the kitchen.

The big mansion is dark. Their are heavy curtains all over the house keeping out the light and Steve knows that the windows on the upper floor are boarded up now to keep out prying eyes and keep in their friend. He passes down the hallway and catches a look into the living room where a whole stack of old _Marvels_ issues are strewn across tables the floor and the settee. The sight of colorful covers used to bring him joy, but seeing the darkened room with the abandoned pulps is like a nightmarish image that wants to burn itself into his memory.

It's a mirror of what's happening to the hero from those pages.

 _Don't be dramatic_ , he tells himself and walks up the stairs, _the two of you have yet to lose a fight._

In the confines of his own mind it sounds convincing - at least right up until he's made his way up the stairs and finds Pepper just leaving Tony's room. She too looks pale, but since all of this started, she's kept it together, while Jim and Steve tour the world doing what Tony would be doing if he were still able too: following leads for wonder cures and a way out. “Not a good day,” she warns him with sad eyes, “but he asked for you this morning. He was clear then.”

“Thanks,” Steve says and shakes his head at her when she wants to pass him the door key. “I'll stay for a while. I'll knock when I want out.”

She understands and lets him inside, closes the door behind him. The turn of the key in the lock is like a heavy promise of dread. 

Here, in the bedroom, it's only Steve and Tony – if he's Tony today and not Zemo.

Tony is standing by the window his back to the room and paints invisible symbols on the wall with a finger, mumbling unintelligible nonsense to himself. One of his wrists is wrapped in white, clean cotton from where he used a fork to hurt himself a few days ago.

“Hello, Tony,” Steve says with a heavy heart. “You were asking for me?”

Wide, empty eyes stare at him over one hunched shoulder and Tony mutters: “The enemy of Hydra.”

It always gives him a chill when things get like this, when Tony isn't exactly Tony, but still has his face and voice. 

He wants to have hope. He wants to know that there's a better way out. Because Tony has fought for his life in too many ways over the years, Steve _has_ to believe that there is a way to save him. After all the adventures Tony Stark deserves better than a bad ending.

Tony goes on muttering and Steve walks up to him, watches his fingers draw his invisible equations with bony fingers. He's lost weight again.

Then Tony freezes. Sometimes that's worse, because when he stops, that's when the laughter starts.

Steve hates the laughter.

It's so close to insanity, to the loss of vibrant brilliance – to all of Tony's nightmares that are now Steve's.

He puts a hand on Tony's shoulder.

Tony unfreezes, but doesn't go back to what he was doing before, his hand still half raised to the wall. For Steve it feels like suddenly the world comes to a grinding halt, as he waits with a held breath for what happens next.

Then Tony turns and looks at him sadly. “Remember how easy it would have been to die in that ridge in Latveria?” he asks and his voice is hoarse and thick with emotion and slowly he lets his hand fall to his side. “It would have been a better end.”

Steve can't help it. His throat is constricting and he feels like tears should be falling down his cheeks like rain, but he's too exhausted to even cry, and he knows he has to be strong for Tony. So he pulls him into his arms and just holds him and Tony, thin and limbs stiff, leans into the embrace.

* * *

**THEN**

They spend the night together in a small, sparsely furnished room in Switzerland and Steve is glad when Tony falls asleep, finally getting the rest he needs. There are no signs that anything's out of the ordinary and Steve knows, because he watches Tony like a hawk. And he knows that Tony knows he's watching.

If the slightest sign of Zemo had shown itself, he would have know. 

But apart from then tension, Tony is just Tony.

It's the relief of having Tony here with him again - safe and sound, sharing warmth, sharing caresses, giving each other the chance to rest, recover and regroup – that helps him relax. They're together and nothing will tear them apart. Iron Man and Captain America are the faces of this war now, and they're winning.

They're going to win and then Tony has promised him they'll have the kind of adventures Steve from Brooklyn had once only dreamed about.

Sleep embraces him just like Tony's reassuring arms.

He wakes to a dark room. 

Tony is sitting at the side of the bed and his face is buried in his hands, his shoulders hunched over. Steve springs to alertness immediately, sits up under the sheets.

“Tony?”

Strong shoulders tense, but Tony doesn't straighten. 

In the scarce light Steve sees a tear glisten on Tony's cheek, vanishing in the perfectly trimmed Van Dyke, but there is no sound. Just the bobbing movement of Tony's Adam's apple as he swallows.

Carefully Steve reaches around his shoulders and pulls Tony back against himself.

Tony allows it and only then does Steve see the gun that rests in Tony's lap.

“Promise me,” Tony whispers and the tears aren't only on his cheeks, but in his rough tired voice too. “Promise me. I need to end it on my own terms, before I end like my father.”

* * *

**NOW**

He comes back from Venezuela without any wonder cure. When he sees Tony again in his dark bedroom prison, Tony doesn't even recognize him. He's incessantly speaking about Iron Man, and planes and the possibility of enhancing flight.

He gets violent sometimes, Jarvis says, but calms down quickly. He asks for Steve sometimes. Somewhere inside Zemo, Tony is still fighting.

And Steve is fighting for the piece of Tony that is still there.

He starts talking about the jungle, about Jim, War Machine, until Tony sits down by his side, still babbling, but like he's trying to talk _with_ Steve. He allows Steve to hold him, sags against him and finally stops speaking and only listens to Steve's voice.

He wants to smile, when Tony curls up and puts his head against his thigh and just goes on listening to his story.

“I remember that,” Tony finally says. “Venezuela. I was there.”

“Yes,” Steve agrees, glad that for this moment he's with Tony again.

“No luck?” He's so very calm about it.

“No luck,” Steve says softly and starts stroking his fingers through Tony's hair.

Tony bites his thumb like a child. “I'm sorry, Steve,” he says softly. “Promise me.”

He thinks of the gun that they keep far away from Zemo and Tony.

“Promise me,” Tony pleads.

“I promise,” he says, for the first time not sure what promise he's making – that he will find a cure or that he'll do whatever is best if there isn't.

He has a ticket. Tony's own notes gave him the lead about a monastery, about a legendary Ancient One in the Himalayas. 

“We're not giving up, Tony. We're not through yet.”

Tony nods, but he watches his own hands tremble. “I may have run out of miracle escapes,” he whispers. “Don't let them get me, Steve. Promise me.”

“I promise,” he whispers. 

He knows they're lucky that Tony has held on this long. This has become a race against time.

One day he might come back and there might be no Tony Stark living behind these familiar blue eyes that get taken over by insanity too often these days.

“I promise.”

He's going to be here today, but he knows he can't put off leaving again. Not if he wants Tony back. He holds Tony while he falls asleep and hopes that this time he can come back with good news, a cure, hope – before it's too late.

“Is the war over?” Tony asks and sounds confused, opening his eyes a slit. Confusion comes before he cycles back into the brainwashed madness that is Zemo. Steve isn't ready to let go and strokes Tony's hair until he settles back down, closes his eyes again.

“No,” he says, although it's been two years since. _Not as long as I'm here. This war isn't over. And I'm not going to lose._ “We're still fighting.”


End file.
